A voice from outside: "Ap-raman!"

At these words, a funereal silence fell upon the room, and the door opened by itself.

A specter entered, and what a specter! A gloomy bronze face, a somber, sinister, colossal figure that struck the resonant slabs with its bronze heels. Unlike the other ghosts, it had the advantage of being neither a chimera nor an apparition but a real, solid, and tangible horror that seized you harshly at the core. Its shadow passed slowly and coldly over the foreheads of the guests. It stopped in the middle of the table, cast livid looks over the guests, poured itself a drink into a leaden goblet, which it emptied in one gulp, and blew on the entire banquet as if to extinguish its joy. At this breath, the lights dimmed, the roses wilted in the women's hair, the masks fell, and the faces turned mournful. Indeed, it was the magician's artificial man.

Alphonse Esquiros, 1836